Happy Keen Day, everybody! Unlike last year, I managed to make something that is Keen and for this year. If you look at the title of this topic, then I'm sure you can easily tell that it's NetKeen levels I'm releasing for this year's Keen Day, 33 levels, that is. 7 of them are Vorticons levels, 15 are Dreams levels, 1 is a K4 level, and the other 10 are K6 levels. All levels are made with Abiathar, an amazing tool by Fleexy. I had a lot of fun making them and testing them with a friend of mine, and I hope you'll all have as much fun playing them with other people!

The files in the above zip folder are meant to be extracted in a folder with the NetKeen game files, overwriting the Vorticons, Dreams, K4, and K6 level files. You can find my levels after the original ones.

Enjoy!

Last edited by Quillax on Fri May 05, 2017 22:47, edited 5 times in total.

Saw your IRC messages. First one was 7am so I was asleep, and the other one we were all afk. If you can hang around for a few hours you'll usually get a reply from someone eventually. Then there's the challenge of all of us having spare time at once, so it might take a few visits before we finally get a game happening.

Great looking levels! Many of these look like they'd be fun to duel in.

I haven't had a chance to play these in a match, but just looking at them, I think Rome is my favorite, and I also really like the Red Asteroid, very unique setting! Just from appearances (again, haven't played a match) I feel the The Cave of Oblivion is one of the weaker levels; it seems very cramped for jumping and pogoing.

As a general observation, and this may just be a preference I have for Netkeen levels, but I try to avoid long straight platforms in which one player can stand and shoot and potentially hit their opponent from across the level. There are a couple of areas like this, such as Candy Clump and the Boobus Chamber, or on Spud Street the player can easily jump and shoot across the central platform potentially scoring hits from off screen. This isn't necessarily bad, and perhaps the player will never have enough ammo to waste on maneuvers like these (without wasting their shots and paying for it afterward!) but it is something to think about if you haven't already.

Another observation is for the SS Spinach and the area inside the boat in which the only way out is two poles going up which are very close to each other. This is a similar layout to my Keen 4 level "Pyramid of Peril". The problem with this scenario (one I didn't recognize until much later) is how easy it is for one player to just guard those poles and trap a player beneath them. For the SS Spinach, It makes it very dangerous to enter that part of the level, and because that area is essentially half of the level, really limits gameplay. Unless that was your intention to create a tempting death trap, you might consider having some openings on the bottom of the ship for the player to pogo out the sides to the top area.

Awesome to see some new levels, I'm looking forward to playing these in a match in the future

Last night, Spleen and I had a match on my Candy Clump map. It was a fun and nice one, Spleen won the match. It made me look forward to doing more NK matches.

Also, thanks for the feedback, Ceilick! I am quite proud of how Rome and the Red Asteroid turned out (the former had to go through a revision once), and it's nice to hear that you like them. Looking back at Oblivion Cave (the first NK map I've ever made since years ago), I could see what you mean. I'll consider having a little more space in it. I suppose I could change the top jump-through platform on Boobus' Chamber into a solid platform, if that fixes the issue.

I looked back at the S.S. Spinach, and I can see what you mean. I didn't really want it to be a deathtrap. Is this revision okay?

That looks good! It's still dangerous to go down there, but now anyone who does has a lot more options for trying to escape. One last suggestion there, and only if you would like to strengthen the lower position even further, would be to extend the platforms leading out of the lower portion by 1 or 2 tiles on the left or right side. This definitely isn't required, but it both makes it easier to pogo out of those areas (In my experience, most casual players have a very difficult time maneuvering the pogo and need all the help they can get!) and it offers the lower player a chance to shoot up if necessary.

Re the Boobus Chamber, the easiest fix is to simple lower the top middle platform by one tile. This makes it so anyone shooting from the left or right will have their bullet 'catch' on the platform, preventing it from going to the other side. Again, that's only if you wish to prevent that kind of random bullet gameplay.

I'd like to say that I just updated the download link in the original post in order to include a new Vorticons level, which was based on the title screen of Keen 1. I hope you'll find it to be fun to fight in.

EDIT: Fixed a few tile errors in the new level. Please redownload the levels if you want to be up to date.

I updated the download link in order to put Title Terrain back into level 47 (I swapped it and Border Town once, since Abiathar can't let me access levels beyond a certain point). Spleen and I also had a couple matches in Rome and the Red Asteroid. Spleen said that he thinks the Red Asteroid could probably use some more ammo or something, though.